In Kang Sok-Kyong's short story, Days and Dreams, she is able to delineate an entirely new society that exists within Korea. A society that formed as a result of blatant geopolitical decisions imposed by a foreign country. She describes the lifestyle and culture of the female Korean prostitute communities that have developed around American military bases. Kang accurately depicts the nothingness that many of these women, such as the main character have come from, and the equally poor and yet more dehumanizing lifestyle they live out now. The narrator of the story came from a family ravaged by the war and ironically makes a living now by exploiting herself to these soldiers, apparently keeping peace and security for her country. Yet for many of these women in the story, that individual sense of security is what is lacking from many of their lives. Even one of the characters, Sun-ja goes to extreme circumstances to pose as a lesbian just to marry an American woman to relieve herself of her the situation she was currently in. Kang accurately describes the inhumane treatment that many of these women are put up, sometimes even by their own family members in order to pay a sibling's tuition or something of the sort. The narrator describes the tragic rape and murder of a friend who was killed by a Korean man. When upon asking what his motives were in the killing, he simply said that "she'd lived it up with the GIs and then give him leftover sex." All she essentially gave him was some leftovers by foreigners. Kang basically centralizes her story on the notion of Korea, being a country dependent upon "living off other countries' leftovers." And ultimately the lifestyle's that many of these women lived was to sustain themselves economically, while in the meantime exploiting their bodies in order to fulfill this requirement. Meanwhile the foreigners there, such as Overton, the playmate of the narrator, was a womanizer and philanderer, and at the same time was apparently married back in the US. Kang is able to bring to the reader the harsh rituals that many of these women must endure in order prevent themselves from becoming fully impoverished, but in the meantime, selling their souls out to the hearts of the foreigners. In Kang's novella, A Room in the Woods, she is able to depict a modern day Korean family influenced by neo-Confucian doctrine, yet each individually upholding different social values and had different notions of thought of their roles within society. The story focuses on the differing behavior of three daughters within the household of a clearly patriarchal family. The father is a successful businessman with an educated and intelligent wife who acts as homemaker. They have four children, the three daughters, and the youngest being a son, who is never mentioned, but as a signification favor he must endure being the only male child, and also the youngest. Amongst the three daughters, the older, the narrator of the story is the typical Korean woman. She graduated majoring in piano, plans to get married and not even work, yet she seems practical enough to always be looking after herself and her sister. Hye-Yang, the next eldest sister is the proverbial daughter, studying to go to medical school, she is smart and intelligent. The youngest of the daughters is So-Yang, the street-savvy and rebellious daughter who had just dropped out of college, she was sick of Korean standards of social qualms and was never afraid to speak against Korean society. Since the story focuses on the whereabouts and concern of So-Yang, since we she has left college, Kang muddles the reader with excerpts from her diary that her oldest sister falls upon. We learn through her diary of the possibility that she could be a manic-depressive. She also seems slightly suicidal, yet what seems to worry her sister the most is her tenacity at being sexually active and possibly promiscuous. Unlike the situation of the women in Days and Dreams, So-Yang uses sex as an instrument to her advantage, not as a means of economic power. Sex for her is a means of empowering herself, since she seems to have nothing else to fallback on. Yet she isn't the conventional Korean daughter, a product of a middle-class family. She is an active social demonstrator, smokes blatantly outside in public, serves as a hostess in a bar, but all the while does not submit to the languid and crass behavior to the men she encounters. She quits her job out of disgust when a man tips her down her shirt. What also complicated her situation were the stark differences she had with her father, a man clearly dependent upon Confucian thought and traditional behavior of the family. Her failure to enroll in college as well as her nightly prowling and partying enraged her father who out of frustration became abusive. Meanwhile her mother played the role of the silent, submissive type well by not being active in disciplining her children, but merely watching her husband do it all. Kang describes these tensions that assumably are evident in many Korean households as a potentially dangerous environment in which an outcome may be similar to that of the So-Yang's.

Having spent 1988-1993 in Korea with IBM, I began the collection of short stories with a strong cultural understanding. The stories vary from prostitution and the US Military (rate 5) to the very well crafted "A Room In The Woods" (definite 10) which uncovers the generation gap in modern Korea. "A Room In The Woods" is well worth the price of the book. A must for those interested in Korean culture.

If you only buy one book to learn Korean, I recommend this title. I had less than two weeks to learn some Korean before my business trip, and felt very glad that this was the first book I found. The course is divided into four sections which, to my surprise, really do stand alone -- Korean script, basic Korean grammar, situational conversations, and reading passages. So you can start by learning the script (like I did), or you can go straight to the conversations, which are romanized, and dip into Hangul later if that is where your interest takes you. The Hangul script was taught in a intelligent way that went beyond the "a-e-i-o-u"-type drilling I have seen in other Korean courses. Hangul rules with scary names like "palatisation" and "aspiration" and "pach'im" were taught effectively without too much fuss. The two 60-minute tapes were good too. Whether it was Hangul, or grammar, or conversations, each lesson was reinforced by the audiotapes, which include just enough sensible English commentary for you to follow the lessons without having to refer to the book all the time. This course is a very good introduction to the Korean language, even for somebody like me who had never learned Korean before and knew virtually nothing about the language and culture.

I have to agree. Just like romantic comedy films, they use the same story line over, and over, and over again...Why bother with this one and just read one of the other thousand mangas just like it????... Honestly. How many times are they going to be able to use this SAME plot, without anybody noticing anything?! So, lets see...Interesting story? NO! Likeable Charectors? None here! :) Entertaining? Not at All!!!! ...

I will admit, I really only got this because I liked how the author drew the charectors on the cover. I learned not to judge a book by its cover long ago w/ Daupne Du Mauriers Rebecca, w/ its sleazy looking cover. The main difference is that that turned out to be great, when I thought it would be slutsy... (And also, I.N.V.U. is a graphic/anime novel...)But, this one was just plain stale. Honestly, I have heared this same souped up story numerous times in many other anime. A teenage girls life turns topsy-turvy, and she falls in love w/ two differnt people (w/one whos older than her). Wow. How totally unique. I've never seen or heared anything like it before. NOT. Also, it was just plain boring. I forced myself to get it over w/ but couldint even finsih the last five pages, or so. NOT RECCOMENDED. GET SOMETHING FUNNY AND DIFFERNT LIKE RANMA 1/2. SERIOUSLY!

This manga is very interesting and confusing at the same time.You first see this girl Sey wake up in the morning to movers who are there taking away her mothers things because her mother(a novelist)decideds to move to Italy for 5 years so she can study the country.If it can't get anymore worse she must live with the Kangs a weird family where the son Terry seems to be a psycho when it comes to hellos.If that's not bad it turns out Terry is actually a girl named Hali who is only known as a son to her mother.This book is great for teens who like romance and would like to see a family more weird then theirs.